Random thoughts on almost anything and everything, with an emphasis on defense, intelligence, politics and national security matters..providing insight for the non-cleared world since 2005.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The Submariner Community Responds

Somehow, I missed this e-mail string that Michelle Malkin posted a couple of days ago. Most are from former U.S. Navy submariners, responding to the recent incident involving the Kitty Hawk carrier battle group and that Chinese Song-class attack sub. The consensus of the ex-submariners is that (a) we probably detected the Chinese boat long before it approached the Kitty Hawk, and (b) the quality of PRC subs and their crews leaves a lot to be desired.

I tend to agree with them on Point B, although Beijing is making strides in both areas. Regarding the detection issue, it would be a nice if the Navy could confirm that we knew the Chinese sub was in the area before it surfaced. There's no reason that such a statement would have to "give away" intelligence or ASW secrets; just let CINCPAC (now in China on an official visit) tell his hosts and the press: "We were aware that the sub was in the area, and our vessels were prepared for any contingency." If that's an accurate assessment of what happened off Okinawa last month, it would be far more reassuring than some comments from the Navy brass, which suggest there was some element of surprise when the Chinese sub appeared on the surface, about five miles from the carrier.

I'm just wondering if some of the same people who are complaining about the sub getting so close are the same ones who complain about the Navy's use of active sonar, because if might hurt marine mammals.

A third alternative is that the captain was trying to get as close as possible to the group and just ran out of battery power, forcing him to surface. Or there was some sort of minor casualty on board forcing him to surface. Just speculation, but there are plenty of things that may have happened (and we'll probably never be told what actually did).

Being well aware of the quality of our submarine forces and knowing that an attack sub was attached to the Kitty Hawk group, I find it difficult to believe that the relatively noisy Chinese sub was not detected and tracked by our attack sub from a superior firing position long before it ever got close to where it was visually sighted upon surfacing.

While I was alarmed by the early reports of this incident, as more information becomes available I've come to recognize that this situation is unlikely to be as dire as initially reported.

As for why the Chinese sub commander chose to surface, one has to wonder if this particular officer thought it appropriate to reveal his presence in a "Gotcha" kind of moment, wreckless as that might be. Chances are, he never knew he was in the crosshairs for even a moment.